“The ailments, she says, began on April 11, 2007. Williams, then a veteran American Airlines flight attendant of 17 years, noticed a “misty haze type of smoke” on flight No. 843 as it taxied toward a gate in Dallas, Texas.
That “fume event,” as it is known, and the physical maladies she felt afterward drove Williams, 40, to file a product liability lawsuit late Tuesday in Seattle, Washington, against Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, aircraft manufacturers linked to the MD-82 aircraft she was on. Her claim: Toxins in the cabin’s air made her sick and a design flaw — the lack of filters and sensors — left her unprotected.
They “knew or should have known that toxic nerve agents, contaminates, and dangerous fumes could bleed into the plane’s ventilation system, causing serious and irreversible health effects,” her attorneys said in a written statement.
Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said he was “aware of the lawsuit” but couldn’t “discuss details of it at this time.”
Reading Tea Leaves by Randy Wilson 